Browsing Posts tagged delivery

Having kept my old philips shaver for a number of years which has served me well the time had come to upgrade as it no longer holds charge and can only be used while plugged directly into the mains which isn’t convenient, so I decided the best upgrade option would be another Philips shaver so I purchased a new series 3000 shaver for myself expecting it to work as well as my previous shaver or better.

Having ordered this via amazon I couldn’t guarantee to be in while the delivery would occur especially as it was ordered while I was working my last job where I literally lived in the building only returning home to sleep and recover before leaving for work again the entire day the next day. So while I was out my amazon delivery was “left in a safe place” by the delivery driver, not remotely the safest possible location just left behind the wheely bins and fairly visible by anyone rather than even being hidden inside the top of one of the bins, or placed over the back fence or even put through the letterbox as this would have fit. This wasn’t the worst part however, as I would rather have been able to arrange redelivery on a rare day off but the worst part of this was the disgusting thing I found inside my amazon package and could only have come from someone either the deliverer or at the factory themselves.

Upon opening my package I initially thought it was some form of white tac holding the item in place however upon closer inspection I noticed actually my item was stuck to the delivery packaging with chewed fruity chewing gum that smelt of tropical flavour, considering I only had mint chewing gum it definitely could not have came from me, and it was disgusting to have my item stuck onto the box with someone else’s chewed gum and whatever diseases they probably have and definitely has their mouth bacteria all inside my box.

How Does The Shaver Compare To My Old One?

Having used the shaver for a while I can definitely say I get rather frustrated by the new shaver often feeling like it hasn’t done as good a job at cutting all the hairs I have growing on my face, often leaving several very long hairs just missed that my old shaver would have trimmed, and that if I want to get rid of them effectively I have to go over the whole area again with my old shaver just to get rid of these hairs that stand out.

My old shaver was easier to clean and came with a brush to do so, whereas the series 3000 doesn’t come with a cleaning brush and the internals are much harder to clean and disassemble, and often the top will detach itself from the base while you are trying to clean it or tip out he hair follicle remnants which is ultra annoying because once detached this part is the hardest to get to clip back in.

It is worth noting that the shaver states it is designed to be for wet and dry, whereas my old shaver was only for dry shaving, and this may operate better with shaving foam, however since I dry shave this isn’t something I plan on testing. The shave heads on this are also flexible in 4 directions compared to my old shaver having more fixed heads, this is supposed to achieve a better shave but I find this doesn’t seem to make any difference and instead results in sometimes the shave head getting stuck under the casing and potentially damaging the shaver if pushed in the wrong way.

Overall Impressions of the Series 3000?

While I can see that the packaging suggests it is designed to be more protective and comfortable than regular shaving I would prefer it to be more effective so you don’t have to constantly go over the missed hairs over and over again until finally you get the smooth shave you’re looking for, this isn’t something that would work for me personally and if I had come across this as my shaving option as a kid I would probably have resorted to disposable razers just to get an effective shave, thankfully my original Philips shaver was very effective and served me well for years so I know they can do better, after having tried foil electric razers unsuccessfully.

Cleaning and maintenance of the shaver seems to be a last minute consideration as my previous shaver was designed to effectively be dismantled and restored with ease to keep it clean, this one collects the hairs in an uneven surface where you couldn’t effectively clean, the blades are much harder to take off and restore, and in doing so you can often find yourself resetting the heads wrong or catapulting the top of the shaver across the room as the flimsy clip releases itself.

All in all though the main thing you’re buying the shaver for is to remove facial hair and leave yourself feeling clean and hairless, and this shaver just doesn’t do this effectively, and I know Philips can do better as my previous shaver is from them, and I would give up comfort for an effective and clean shave that just works straight away removing all hairs from stubble to weeklong growth with ease. As this razer does not do this effectively unfortunately I cannot recommend this as an electric shaver, I would suggest finding a working version of my old shaver if you really wanted an effective electric shaver, or suggest disposable blades as they will work far more effectively than this product, that being said there are easy ways they could fix the problem, have the shave heads cut more effectively and not miss all these hairs, redesign the cleaning system so it’s flat inside easier to remove the follicle remnants, and make the top stay attached and the heads easier to remove for maintenance and cleaning.

It’s sad to say that I can’t recommend this product and I would replace it with any working electric shaver that actually removes hairs as well as my previous shaver did.

I purchased through amazon some items including some thomson noise cancelling HED 2303 headphones and even though I selected free delivery it seems that my package was taped within amazon prime tape, perhaps this was just to advertise prime but I hope not to charge me for expensive prime services I did not want and would not use. The reason I splashed out on a purchase was a variety of reasons one being that I had been needing noise cancelling headphones for a while with my computer graphics card giving off ridiculously loud noise and they were definitely needed.

The headphones themselves were reduced from £70 to around £30 and amazon does tend to have fluctuating pricing so it’s a good idea to keep an eye on things see if you can find the product you want at a better price, and at these prices you do get free amazon delivery. This along with the fact that I had some credit from old surveys I had completed unspent needing to be used meant that I decided to splash out on a few things.

How Comfortable Are The Headphones?

The headphones do have softened ear pads and an adjustable strap on the top so you can resize to fit your head for the most part however the ear cups do seem to be a little small to contain your ear within the padded area, and so you have the pads pushing onto your ears which can be a little uncomfortable for long periods of use. If you have smaller ears or different shaped ears you might find things more comfortable but the tips of my ears which are a little more pointy do get sore wearing these for long periods as the pressure focuses down on this area.

How Effective Is The Noise Cancelling

The noise cancelling is probably the main reason you would want to buy a pair of headphones like this and with the retail price noted around £70 you expect it to be rather effective, and having tried noise cancelling headphones at shows like the gadget show in the past of a more expensive standard I had a baseline to compare to even though they were out in the open cancelling background ambient conversation noise rather than close by noisy repetitive fan whine.

This being said the fan the fan can still be heard over the noise isolation of the insulated cups, and there is a noticeable reduction of fan noise with the noise cancelling feature turned on as well as some noticeable audio noise which perhaps is a feature of noise cancelling where I may have gained tinnitus from the fan alone and as a result I am hearing the counter noise through the headphones, or perhaps the microphone just might be poorly calibrated at noise cancelling and is making additional noise in a separate frequency. Overall I feel there is some noise reduction but not to the level and standard I really expected for such an expensive set of headphones, as you do have to take things at their retail price and not the reduced price you might have purchased a product for.

How Is The Sound Quality?

With the noise reduction feature on the sound is as expected and clear as I have come to expect from headphones, however with the noise cancelling off as this amplifies the treble and muffles the base while switched on slightly due to the construction it could be how I have become use to headphones, if you prefer bass heavy headphones noise cancelling will reduce this and you’d prefer it switched off, however I prefer the sound with the amplified treble and lower bass so when the batteries run out switching it to noise isolating alone does sound a little unusual.

So What Are My Overall Thoughts?

The headphones do state that they should manually switch from noise cancelling to isolating when the batteries run out however as the batteries run lower and lower the volume becomes minuscule so you cannot hear anything and you are forced to switch manually from noise cancelling and even if you force it by switching up the volume again and again eventually you get very distorted sounds before finally the batteries run dry and you still have to manually switch off noise cancelling to hear anything, however the batteries do last a reasonable amount of time, using 900mAh Ni-MH (nickel metal hydride) rechargeable batteries the noise cancelling under heavy use would last at least 50 hours of constant use before needing a recharge or battery swap, perhaps longer if you force turning your volume up.

Are they worth the retail price, possibly not I would suggest to look for sale’s as at £70 it is a large commitment even with noise cancelling, but at around £20-30 then these are a reasonable purchase and only because of the added value of the noise cancelling, perhaps if the earphones were a little more comfortable for all ear types and the folding feature actually did anything rather than be pointless the cost might be higher but these might as well be generically shaped headphones you could get for £10-15. The fact that the product comes with a separate cable does add a little to the value as it means if you break the cable you don’t have to replace the entire headset which is good, however I have dropped these off my desk once and it did leave the sound a little strange for a few days, and the adjustable ear pieces if swiveled too far in one direction even though they are designed to swivel more to adjust to your head shape can knock off the noise cancelling feature perhaps due to a loose wire or something getting caught which is disappointing.

However if you need a set of noise cancelling headphones these are the cheapest I could find at the moment and that is a good thing as they tend to be a lot more expensive, sure the noise cancelling isn’t as good as I hoped but there’s no guarantee’s that more expensive noise cancelling would do any better as I can’t test them with my computer fan either.

Don’t confuse “noise cancelling” with “noise isolating” which often get’s branded as noise cancelling, this is active noise cancellation technology and you will struggle to find another pair cheap at this time, perhaps this is the herald of cheaper active noise cancellation technology but for now if you’re not willing to wait a few years for prices to come down this is the best you will find at a very affordable price!

What About The Whiteboard?

I did get an “add on” item from amazon, something you have to buy other products of a minimum price to get, with toothpaste and a whiteboard, the whiteboard would normally be £15 but I got it for under £3, and it’s only really worth the price I paid for it, sure it come’s with a pen which magnetises to the board, 2 magnets and hanging strips but the whiteboard is a little flimsy quality seperated in half from the corkboard and looks like it could fall out or break off easily, which could be fixed no problem with something perhaps gluing the whiteboard down so it doesn’t flim flam around or if the corkboard simply was seperated with a little plastic divider so the whiteboard was held down, but this looks like a corkboard with a flimsy bit of whiteboard plastic attached inside it cheaply and it wouldn’tve taken much to make the quality better to justify the retail price, however at under £3 it wasn’t a bad purchase but would require you to buy other things on amazon to meet the £15 criteria and also to qualify for the free shipping.